It was 9 p.m., and one by one, pairs of glowing eyes materialized in the inky darkness of the neighborhood back yards.

A nervous orange tiger cat with a white blaze was the first to venture to the heaping bowl. Nearby, three black-and-white kittens watched cautiously from underneath Sharon Lenner's car.

"Hi, kids," Lenner said as she opened a large can of Friskies -- her second of the night.

Since last fall, Lenner has fed feral cats in the carport in her quiet neighborhood in Bethlehem's Kaywin section, near Westgate Mall.

But what started as a gesture of kindness has gotten out of hand.

Last fall, there were just five cats. Now, the number is approaching 20. New kittens constantly are born and Lenner is desperate.

"I don't know what to do with them," Lenner, 37, said. "I already have one indoor cat that's sickly. My neighbors are flipping because of the cats. But if I stop feeding them, they'll die, and I can't do that."

While the situation in Lenner's neighborhood is extreme, it isn't uncommon throughout the Lehigh Valley or the United States.

Since 1996, Northampton animal control officers alone have maintained four areas where feral cats are neutered and released. That has reduced the borough's feral cat population significantly, but other areas aren't as fortunate.

"It is absolutely a national problem," said Dr. Leslie Sinclair, director of companion animal care for the Humane Society of the United States.

"We estimate there are 40 (million) to 60 million free-roaming cats in the United States. It's one of our biggest problems today. We talk to people across the country about this problem on an almost daily basis."

At all Lehigh Valley shelters Lenner has contacted, the story is the same.

"This time of year, we are always overloaded with cats and kittens," said Nancy Frey, president of Pets in Need. "People don't want to bother spaying them and they just throw them out and they multiply and multiply."

She said the problem is less severe in winter -- not because cats stop breeding, but because fewer survive.

"Everybody thinks cats are tough, but they're not," she said. "They have more illnesses and problems than dogs do. When feral cats get sick, they die."

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Lenner said she took the first kittens she found to the Humane Society, but as the cats multiply, she's running out of places to take them.

Bethlehem's animal control officer suggested she catch the cats in a live trap, neuter them and release them, but Lenner said she can't afford to do that at more than $40 each.

"It gets expensive just buying all this food," she said. "I've been charging my groceries."

People at work and friends have donated cat food and money, and recently Northampton Borough Animal Shelter gave her several cases of canned food. But that doesn't solve the larger problem.

Neighbor Theresa Rothrock said she is sympathetic to Lenner's concern for the cats, but said the animals are a nuisance and use her yard as a litter box.

Frey said she doesn't like euthanasia and Pets In Need does not euthanize animals, but it is preferable to an animal getting hit by a car or starving to death.

"It's overwhelming," Frey said. "From the end of February until November, there are kittens galore. I come home and sometimes there are 30 calls on the answering machine. We take in what we can."

Sinclair, the national Humane Society official, said the explosion of unwanted cats will be the focus of the fall issue of the society's Animal Sheltering Magazine, distributed nationally to animal shelters.

Sinclair said the problem has shifted from dogs to cats as pet cats rise in popularity.

"Since cats have become more popular as a companion animal than dogs, there are more being abandoned by people," she said.

She said at one time there was more of a problem with abandoned dogs and that's why many communities now have dog ordinances.

Sinclair said the society recently completed a yearlong study on the problem and offers solutions for different communities, including legislation that would require cat owners to license, neuter and spay their pets.

She said that in some communities, as in Northampton, monitored feral cat colonies work. But she said colonies should be only for true feral cats and cats that have been abandoned but are socialized should have a chance for a good home.

But Pets in Need President Frey said feral cats are difficult to place.

"Feral cats take a long time to get used to people," she said. "Most people want a ready-made pet."

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As the cats fed at Lenner's house on a recent night, a sudden noise sent two of the kittens retreating under the car, but not for long. Soon they had polished off the food and Lenner was scraping more out of another can.